A Cognitive Approach for Modeling Lifelong Competence Development

Lifelong competence development is a fundamental premise for an information society, as well as major aim and challenge. Facing the variety of learning programs and qualification measures, problems emerge in supporting lifelong learning. Efficient competence development necessitates providing learners with learning opportunities which are appropriate for their current knowledge and for their individual learning goals. A related problem is the comparison of learners’ competencies when these have been assessed in very different situations, at different ages, and with different methods. This work discusses the advantages of formally modeling competence and performance, which enables determining learners’ latent, unobservable competence states based on their observable performance on a set of assessment methods.